Arc2Earth Offers New Licenses and other Education GIS News

Arc2Earth is a tool to convert ArcGIS data into KML and provide other services related to Web mapping. It's well regarded and used in government, businesses and academia (see the existing long list of university users). The company feels it has a larger place in education and non-profits:

We believe Arc2Earth is highly relevant in both education and non-profit environments, we look forward to working with you and your organization to accomplish this.

The FAQ states that educational organizations and non-profits can get a 20% discount. The new pricing notes a 40% discount.

To explain all that [GIS] to students from Palm Bay, Bayside and Heritage high schools and Odyseey Charter School, Phillips-Mustain used a zombie attack.

The exercise?

It showed a zombie apocalypse and the map showed how far you could walk to get the supplies you need to survive. The students were provided a survival map and the red areas showed where they could travel and get back to BCC. The students were given a check list of emergency supplies and where they should go to get the supplies. As the scenario progressed, areas became overrun by zombies.

The €8.5 million, 4 year, COBWEB (Citizen OBservatory WEB) project will develop an "observatory framework" that will make it easier for citizens to collect environmental data suitable for use in research, decision making and policy formation. The project is built around UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR), with test areas in Biosphere Reserves within the UK, Germany and Greece.

The COBWEB project is led by the University of Edinburgh, which put together a consortium of thirteen partners from five European countries: UK, Germany, Greece, Netherlands and Ireland. Funding comes from the EU’s FP 7 Programme, which is designed to respond to Europe's employment needs, competitiveness and quality of life.